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sc94597 on 16 April 2025
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Biggerboat1 said:
sc94597 said:

PS4 settings are pretty much the same thing as Steam Deck (preset) settings, which both are roughly a mix of low, medium, and high settings of the PC title. There is a Steam Deck preset designed to run at 800p 30fps (with FSR Balanced so really more like 540p internally.) 

These are the preset settings

When I run that preset on my Rog Ally Z1E (a handheld that is 30% stronger than the base Steam Deck) I need to run it at 720p (slightly worse than 540p internally) to get a stable 40fps. This is what the game looks like. 

This is what the game looks like when I target 1080p (~720p internally) and 30fps. 

Here is what the game looks like on Switch 2

So yes, it's comparable, but the Series S version isn't much higher than this in terms of graphics quality settings (a few more high toggles rather than medium.) Where the Series S shines is in resolution and frame-rate. 

The Switch 2 version (docked) is targeting settings/performance similar to (if not slightly better than, given they want 1080p 30fps) the Rog Ally version given CDPR's performance goals. That makes sense because the Switch 2 is roughly on par with a Rog Ally. This is a half-tier above the PS4/Steam Deck in terms of image quality/performance, and a half-tier below the Series S in terms of image quality/performance. 

I don't consider that disappointing really. It's what you would expect for a demanding multi-platform game. 

You seem to be talking about docked. When sighting S2 being slightly weaker than Steam Deck I was talking about undocked, which if true would be a bit disappointing as the Deck is over 3 years old now... It's true that it launched for a bit more than S2 (at 256GB) though Nintendo will have vastly more bargaining power so should get a lot more bang for their buck due to volume (think the Deck is around 4 million sold, so under 1.5m per year).

Thankfully due to S2 assumed large install base, games will be optimized more than on the Deck, but it would have been nice to have both - Optimization + undocked performance that handily beat a 3yo Deck. Also, for CP specifically, this has been Nvidias showpiece for various technologies so it should run better than vs AMD hardware at a similar performance.

Maybe you have an insight into how much more a node step up would have cost? They'd have saved money from not having to change node mid-gen (if they followed S1 strategy) and they'd also presumably have gotten another year or 2 out of the hardware as it would have delayed the point at which the visuals would be seen as obsolete.

I'm just going from what DF is saying, so if that proves inaccurate then I'll obvs change my position.

In terms of raw raster the Switch 2 is about 55% as powerful in handheld mode as in docked mode. That roughly aligns with the difference between the Steam Deck's and Switch 2's targeted modes.

The Switch 2 is targeting 2 times the output resolution at the same frame rate and settings docked as the Steam Deck. I am not going to talk about internal resolution because I don't think the Switch 2 is going to get to 1080p without DLSS in the game and we don't know what sort of DLSS solution they'll use. 

So there is no reason that if they hit the 1080p 30fps target docked they can't hit a 720p 40fps or slightly higher resolution 30fps target in handheld with similar settings to the Steam Deck/PS4/Switch 2 (Docked.) 

When it comes to projections (rather than analysis of existing products) I don't find Digital Foundry to be very reliable. Remember, they originally thought the docked Switch 2 would be less performant than the Steam Deck. That is obviously far from the case. They're questioning a highly capable team's ability to achieve perfectly doable frame-rate and resolution targets given what we know of the system. If CDPR thinks it is feasible to have a 1080p 30fps mode and a 40fps at some lower resolution, then I think it is more likely than not to happen. And if that is the case, then the handheld mode will almost certainly be more or less match to match to what the Steam Deck outputs. 

Last edited by sc94597 - on 16 April 2025